Mistral Loisirs claims coastal race

At the Class 40 World Championship, the 40 mile coastal course started at 12:25 with 14 boats racing to Lastres – a hillside village 18 miles east of Gijon – and back in an 8 knot northwesterly.

Five boats were OCS including Jean-Edouard Criquioche on Groupe Picoty went back to restart while four others didn't including Gonzalo Botin's Tales, Ned Collier-Wakefield's Concise 2, Adrian Van Oord and Roeland Franssens's Moonpalace and Nick Leggatt's Phesheya-Racing.

The windward mark was located by 2 miles from the start at 300° and first to it as the breeze slowly dropped was Thomas Ruyant's Destination Dunkerque, followed by Marc Lepesqueux on Marie Toit-Caen la Mer and Moonpalace.

After that, an 18-mile downwind leg took them to Lastres and Thierry Bouchard on Mistral Loisirs-Pôle Santé Elior took the lead followed by Marie Toit-Caen La Mer and Destination Dunkerque. Concise 2 rounded 8th while Groupe Picoty, slowest out of the start, caught up to 9th ahead of Sam Manuard and Vecteur Plus.

Then under Code 0 they returned towards Gijon with Thierry Bouchard taking the gun in this first race of the Class40 World Championship, Gonzalo Botin with Thomas Ruyant just behind him.

“We are very happy about today," said Bouchard. "We did have some unexpected technical problems and we lost a lot of time but we managed stay focused and catch up thanks to a very homogeneous crew.”

Thomas Ruyant added: "It was not an easy one for us, our boat wasn’t designed for such light winds. But we did a good analysis of the sailing area and ended up on the right side.”